CHAPTER IV

FORREST PLAYS A TRICK

"It's no more than civil, mother, that you and Olive should go over and call!" insisted Murray Townsend, with heat.

"I can't see that it is necessary at all," replied Mrs. Townsend, with offsetting coolness. "The young man has been properly thanked for his services; indeed, I should say that between you and Forrest and Shirley the entire family have had quite fuss enough made over them."

"I didn't make much of the fuss," Forrest said. "I was only there five minutes at the end of the show. Time enough to see, though, that those people are n't off the same piece as the usual tenants of that house. They 've seen better days, or I miss my guess."

"Not at all. They 've never had much money, but they 're educated people, just the same--self-educated, a mighty good sort. You 've only to look at the books that fairly line that little room to see for yourself. Is n't there any rule for sizing up men but by the dollars they 've made--or women but by the clothes they wear?"

The vehemence of Murray's speech was so unusual, and his ordinarily quiet and indifferent expression had given place to one so eager, that the family all turned with one accord to look at him. They were at dinner, one late April evening, a week after the fire. The dining-room was the one place in the house where all the family were accustomed to meet; therefore any question of the sort which Murray had proposed was brought up there as a matter of course.

Mr. Townsend himself answered his son's pointed observation, forestalling the rejoinder about to fall from his wife's lips:

"It's the way of the world, Murray, and an unjust one in many cases. Still, one can't help feeling that a man who has lived to the age of Joseph Bell without reaching a position higher than the one he holds with the Armstrong Company can't be possessed of a very unusual endowment of brains."

"I should say that depends on whether making money has been his ambition, or something else."

"He certainly hasn't achieved the something else," was Olive's comment. "Not even a decent home."

"Decent!" Murray turned on her. "It's a home worthy the name--I can tell you that! And if you refuse to call on these people that live in it, after Peter Bell saved ours over our heads, I say you 're acting like snobs!"

"Murray!" His mother spoke very sharply. Forrest laughed. He enjoyed the scene, being inclined, by his remembrance of Jane, to take his brother's side. Mr. Townsend came to the rescue.

"You are rather rough in your language, Murray, but I think you are right in your notions about the call. It's only a courtesy, surely, Eloise, to go over and make one call. You don't need to continue the acquaintance unless you wish, but I should be glad myself if you would go. It is several days now since----"

"It's a week," said Murray.

"He knows--no doubt of that!" laughed Forrest. "He's cultivated the acquaintance, anyhow. I saw him walking up the street yesterday with the pretty girl of the family."

"You walked up with her yourself the day before!" cried Shirley.

Forrest threw back his head and laughed. "You 're a little spy. Well, I don't mind owning that I did. She's a trim-looking girl on the street, too, if she does n't wear the furbelows Olive does. She----"

"We may as well go over and call, mother," said Olive, with emphasis. "If both the boys are running after the family, we ought to find out what they are."

"You won't be so condescending as you think," Murray said to her, as he left the room at her side. "Mrs. Bell is n't the sort to be impressed with the honour you do her."

Mrs. Townsend and Olive, realising that the wishes of the three male members of the family were not to be lightly disregarded, made the call without further delay. Dressed as carefully as if they had been calling in Worthington Square, they knocked upon the door of the little house in Gay Street, and were admitted by Nancy.

It chanced that this was a Saturday afternoon. And Saturday was a half-holiday for nearly all workers in the city. Thus it came about that in the middle of the stiff little call--stiff in spite of Mrs. Bell and Jane, who had received their visitors with all simplicity and naturalness--Peter arrived at home. Being burdened with small parcels, he hurried round to the kitchen door, and depositing his parcels on the table there, started in search of his sisters.

"Jane--Nan--where are you?" he shouted through the little house, and before Nancy, springing down the stairs, could stop him, he had bolted into the front room.

Olive Townsend, turning quickly, recognised the big, fresh-coloured youth, with the good-humoured, clever-looking face, who had several times been of assistance to her. Peter was presented to the visitors by his mother, who seemed quite undisturbed by the interruption. Jane only laughed, and Peter himself recovered his balance with but a momentary show of confusion.

"It was important business, you see," he said, smiling, and explaining to Jane. "I brought home the flower-seeds you wanted, and I had an idea they must get into the ground within the next fifteen minutes, or it would be too late."

"I don't wonder he thought so," Jane said to Olive, glancing from her brother to her guest. "I impressed upon him this morning the fact that if the sweet peas were n't planted to-day we should n't have any growing before August. Don't go, Peter. Perhaps Miss Townsend can tell us what else we ought to have in our garden."

Peter obediently drew up a chair and sat down.

Olive, responding that she knew nothing whatever about gardens, because the gardener always attended to whatever flower-beds there were about the grounds, was conscious of a keen and steady scrutiny from Peter's cool gray eyes, quite as if he were not in the least abashed by her distinguished presence.

She was, moreover, forced to acknowledge, as the moments went by, that Peter could talk, and talk well. He came to the assistance of Jane, who had begun to feel the difficulties of entertaining the visitor, and told an amusing incident of the morning's experience. Before she knew it, Olive was laughing, for Peter's clever mimicry was quite irresistible.

As she rose to go Olive made an immense condescension: "I believe it must have been you, Mr. Bell," she said, "who picked up my handkerchief for me one day."

Peter laid his hand on his heart with a droll gesture and a formal bow--an interesting combination.--"I think I had the honour," he admitted, with a twinkle.

And now something unforeseen happened. Exactly as the visitors rose to go, the April skies, which five minutes before had been smiling, suddenly opened, and poured out one of those astonishing spring downfalls which arrest street traffic on the instant.

Mrs. Townsend and Olive, with the door opening to let them out, stood still upon the threshold in dismay, glancing down at their delicate spring attire.

"You can't go in this," said Mrs. Bell, cordially. "It will be over soon. Please come back and sit down."

The fates must surely have intended from the first to mix up things between these two families of Townsend and Bell. With that end in view nothing could have been more opportune than this shower, for it lasted a good half-hour without showing signs of slackening, and it contributed also lightning and thunder, which made Olive shrink and shudder. Also Ross, McAndrew and young Rufus Bell, coming home in the late afternoon, and being caught at the corner in the downpour, dashed for the little front porch for shelter, and then into the living-room.

Ross, making apologies on account of his moist condition, and getting through the room and out with Rufus as fast as possible, was yet able to take in the surprising fact that Peter was sitting in the corner with the girl from the aristocratic square, chatting cheerfully with her, and eliciting not altogether unwilling smiles in response.

Out in the kitchen, with the door closed, Ross and Rufus interviewed Nancy.

"How on earth did old Peter get into it like this?" Ross inquired, as he hung his coat to dry by the stove. "I could hardly believe my eyes to see him confabulating with Miss Worthington Square. She seems quite human, does n't she--when you get her indoors?"

"I don't know," said Nancy. "I only let them in. She looks awfully pretty, don't you think? And maybe she's nice when you get to know her."

"If you ever do," qualified Ross. "Pretty? Well, all I saw was a gorgeous hat and a pair of big eyes; I felt as if somebody was looking at me with a spy-glass. She is n't in it with our Janey, if you're talking about prettiness."

"No, of course not!" cried loyal Nancy.

By the time the storm had ceased, a good deal of the stiffness in the little front room had melted away. It may be possible for some people to be formal and frigid for the space of a ten-minute call, but to keep it up for full three-quarters of an hour longer, while rain pours, and lightning flashes, and unconventional young persons dash in and out, and a youth like Peter tells jolly stories--that becomes much more difficult. Mrs. Townsend maintained a peculiar dignity to the end, but Olive--well, in spite of her prejudices, Olive was young, and liked young associates, and as she looked and listened, it became more and more difficult for her to refuse to recognise that the people in this little house were not ordinary, not commonplace, not uneducated, as she had fancied them, but bright, and gay, and interesting.

When she gave Jane her hand, as she took her leave--the April storm having at last given place again to brilliant April sunshine--she found herself wishing she might know this prepossessing maid. There was a straightforward sweetness in the glance of Jane's rich hazel eyes, a captivating charm in her free smile, which the other girl had never encountered in quite so beguiling a form. Olive Townsend, of all the girls whom Jane had ever met least likely to succumb to the fascinations of another girl not in her own "set," fell, nevertheless, considerably under Jane's influence on that very first encounter. In taking leave she said to Jane that which she had not dreamed of saying, commonplace an expression of friendliness as it was: "I shall hope to see you often, since we live so near."

"Gone--gone--all gone?" queried Ross, putting in his head cautiously at the living-room door, as the visitors turned the corner.

"All gone," replied Peter. "Gone forever--silks and velvets and new spring hats."

"Ribbons and laces, and sweet, pretty faces," chanted Ross, reminded of the old child-rhyme. "'Sugar and spice, and everything nice.' Not much sugar about Miss Worthington Square, eh, Pete?"

"Oh, I don't know," mused Peter, gazing absently out of the window toward the square, where Olive's spring finery was just fluttering out of sight. "She 's not so bad at close range. I should n't wonder if an earthquake shock might stir her up into quite an interesting girl. Lacking that, some lesser convulsion of nature might possibly----"

"The Bell family certainly did their best to shock her. If daddy and Nan could have just burst in from somewhere, I think the effect would have been complete," declared Jane, merrily.

The subject of these comments, upon reaching home, found herself called upon for an opinion of the Bells.

Forrest Townsend, encountering his sister upon the stairs, followed her to her room.

"Own up that they 're not as odd as you thought," he demanded.

"They 're very well--of their sort," was Olive's reply, observing herself in her mirror, and congratulating herself on the fact that the new spring hat was undoubtedly becoming.

"See here, why not send Jane and Peter an invitation to your party?"

"'_Jane and Peter!_' You seem to be pretty intimate with them already."

"I don't call them that to their faces. But you 've seen for yourselves they 're all right. Ask them over; it won't hurt you."

"Why, Forrest Townsend--people who don't know a soul in our set! What an idea!"

"A mighty good idea. Nobody 'll know they live in Gay Street--and you won't be ashamed of them either."

"I shall not do anything of the sort." Olive took off the hat and laid it in its box. "I don't know what in the world has got into you and Murray; you 're both perfectly mad over the Bells. If you 're so charmed with that girl you can go and call on her, I suppose."

She recalled with some surprise her own liking for Jane, wondering, now that her brother showed his prepossessions so strongly, how she could have fancied her. It seemed sometimes to be a matter of principle with Olive never to like the people whom Forrest or Murray liked.

"See here," said Forrest, frowning, "I think it's pretty ill-natured of you not to invite one or two persons I ask you to, whether you happen to want them or not. This party may be your birthday affair, but there 's no reason why somebody else should n't have a hand in the inviting. Let's see your list, will you?"

Olive unwillingly handed him a sheet of paper, upon which the names of her prospective guests were written. He scanned it sharply.

"Same old crowd," he observed, his handsome brows knit into a scowl. "I should think you 'd want a little fresh blood, to liven things up."

"For you to sit in a corner with, you mean."

"Will you do it to please me?"

"No!" Olive snatched the list out of his hand and returned it to a box, which she laid in a drawer of her desk.

Forrest stood looking at her for a moment, then, without a further word, shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room.

Two hours later he came quietly back. Olive had gone out, as he knew. He crossed the room to the desk, searched and found the box into which he had seen the list put, and discovered, as he had expected, the invitations to the birthday party folded and partially addressed. He knew that they were to go out upon the morrow, and that Olive doubtless would finish the task of addressing them that evening. He had heard her bewailing the fact that this labour consumed so much time, but he had not cared to offer to assist her.

Forrest looked the invitations over, smiling to himself, took out two unaddressed envelopes and put them into his pocket, closed the door and strolled away. In his own room he took them out again, and wrote upon them in his best hand, "Peter Bell, Esq.," and "Miss Jane Bell," adding the street and number, and stamping and sealing them, still with the laugh in the corners of his mischievous mouth.

The next day, when Olive's invitations went into the letter-box on the corner, they were shortly followed by two of which the giver of the party had no knowledge.

It happened that the early morning mail in Gay Street always arrived just before the departure of the family workers for their place of business. So when Nancy, after answering the postman's ring, came back to the table with the mail, both Peter and Jane, just finishing breakfast, were on hand to receive it.

"Whose handwriting can this be, I wonder?" speculated Jane, intently studying the dashing address.

Peter glanced over her shoulder. "Same as mine," he observed, ripping his envelope open. "Looks like a wedding invitation; but since none of our friends, Janey, are so much as thinking of getting married-- Hello, what's this?"

"Oh, why--" Jane was stammering, eagerly. "O Petey--how lovely--why-- There, I knew she was n't as cold and proud as you thought her!"

"Who--what?" demanded Nancy, with excitement.

"Miss Olive Townsend," explained Jane, flushing with pleasure.

"What! Miss Worthington Square invited you two every-day folks to her party?" Ross inquired, getting up from the table and reaching for his hat. "Pete, you 'll lose your car if you stand mooning over that thing."

"How did you know she was to have a party?"

"Little Miss Shirley confided it to me."

"Me, too!" cried Nancy, proudly. "But she did n't tell me her sister would ask you."

"Miss Olive probably didn't intend to," hazarded Peter, folding up his note and putting it carefully in his pocket, "until she came to call and saw our charms. She came--she saw--we conquered--eh, Janey?--with our sweet smiles and our stories. How about it, sister? Do we go?"

"If," began Jane slowly, the smile fading a little on her bright face, "if----"

"If we've anything to wear!" supplied Ross, and began to whistle gaily. "_Oh, ye shall walk in silk attire_," breaking off to glance at the clock and start hastily for the door, with Peter and Rufus after him. Jane turned to Mrs. Bell, who, sitting quietly in her place at the head of the table, was regarding her young daughter as if she understood all the doubts which had instantly risen in the girl's mind.

"I think we can manage it, dear," she said, "if the party dress does n't have to match the invitation."

Jane's face grew flushed again. "I can wear anything, mother, if I have some fresh ribbons. But Peter----"

"Yes--Peter--" agreed Mrs. Bell. She rose and came round to Jane. "Peter shall have a new cravat," said she, and smiled into Jane's eyes.

Jane smiled back. Each knew that the other was thinking of Peter's best black suit--in which he went to church on Sundays. Each knew that the Townsend sons would wear evening clothes.

"Yes, with a new cravat Petey will be all right," said Jane. "Dear boy, he was pleased, was n't he? And it _is_ nice of her to ask us!"